


Ouroboros

by WatchMeSoar13



Category: The Agency (TV 2001)
Genre: Angst, Coping Mechanisms, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, Torture, Very Out Of Order, Violence, not chronological
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 10:17:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17826809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WatchMeSoar13/pseuds/WatchMeSoar13
Summary: The heat, the dirt, the guns, the blood; all new, all different, but he was still drowning. If Lex were the type to believe in things like Fate, maybe his situation would seem cosmically funnier.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Wonderful art by [idabbleincrazy](https://idabbleincrazy.tumblr.com/), who deserves a medal for putting up with me while I had some sort of life crisis.

 

**_  
_ **

**_Rifle, Colorado 1985_ **

 

The pounding ache in his head was the first thing that Alex became aware of as he awoke. Second to that was the numbness of everything else. 

 

The thirteen year old tried, _so hard_ , to open his eyes, but every time there was too much light and too much movement. He craned his neck, twisted his head away. His cheek touched damp, frigid grass and he pried his eyes open again. The sight that greeted him was incomprehensible.

 

There was a hand on his chin, someone trying to turn his face back towards them, but with a strength he didn’t understand Alex kept his gaze locked on the picture before him. _Jay_ , he thought, over and over like a prayer. Just the name. _Jay, Jay, Jay…_

 

Jay lie only feet from him, on his back, face turned towards Alex in horrific mirror image. In the dying light of day, the blood that covered his face and stained his clothes was starkly blackish against the too-pale skin and light blue shirt. It was everywhere. It ran from his nose, his mouth; the hair at his temple was matted and black. His eyes were open and sightless. 

 

His head was finally wrenched back around and his neck surrounded by something to keep it in place. He was lifted, moved, adjusted—someone covered his face, and the approaching sound of a helicopter permeated his skull and made the throbbing mockery of a heartbeat unbearable. Someone shone a light into his eyes and he shut it out, _shut everything out_. 

 

He did not fight to stay awake. He didn’t want to. 

 

 

 

**_Saudi Arabia 2004_ **

 

Through the pounding in his head, the only thought Lex could hold on to was that it was _hot_ , and he was _burning_. He gasped for breath as his brow furrowed, trying to orient himself as his entire being spun dizzily. 

 

Quite suddenly, he was drowning in freezing water. He snapped his eyes open and sputtered, drenched and dripping, dizziness gone but nausea still very much present. Wherever he was, it was dark, and opening his eyes did nothing. 

 

“Welcome,” a rasping voice said above him. Lex focused hard and managed to make out the shape of boots in front of him. “You, my friend, have something of mine.”

 

Lex tested his body. Short analysis: everything worked, but nothing could move. Each limb securely tied to the arms and legs of a chair, bindings also tight around his chest and waist.

He strained to raise his gaze. “Well, _my friend,_ ” oh hell, was that his voice? “You may have noticed I’m a bit scrambled at the moment.”

 

Lex was suddenly dealt a harsh blow to the temple. Through the spots dancing around his vision, he finally registered that there were other more people in the room; heavy footsteps circling behind him, hushed words to his right. A fist in his hair yanked his head back to meet the shadowed face of his captor. Lex fought to keep his face impassive. 

 

“You deal in secrets.” Rancid breath played against deathly calm voice. “I simply wish to do business.”

 

“I don’t really have a head for business.”

 

An unfriendly smile stretched the man’s lips. “Funny. Your friend said much the same thing.”

 

He let go of Lex’s hair with a jerk, and light flooded the room with an electric hum. Stiles was directly in front of him, tied to a chair, bleeding from the lip, and looking exactly as haggard as Lex felt. Perhaps a bit more, considering Stiles had a gun pressed against the side of his head. 

 

Lex almost threw up. The fact that he kept his cool, under other circumstances, would have made him feel really good about himself. As it was, all he could think about were statistics involving prisoners of war and it only made him sicker. 

 

The man, who seemed to be the boss in this situation, turned over his shoulder and nodded to the gunman before focusing on Lex once again. 

 

“You may talk. I’m sure, given time, you will see sense.”

 

The room cleared out with a click of Boss’s fingers. Lex and Stiles hadn’t broken eye contact since the lights turned on. Alone, Lex just knew that he was starting to look a little frantic. Because Stiles was looking a little frantic, and if Stiles was losing it, Lex was _definitely_ losing it. 

 

“…So.”

 

“So.”

 

“Plan?”

 

Lex really did not like the look that crossed Stiles’s face. It almost looked like an apology. A memory popped into mind, one of Lex and Stiles on a plane, when the silence of the man in front of him was the only commentary to Lex’s realization that they were probably going to die. 

 

Not the most comforting thought at the moment. Lex took a few deep breaths. 

 

“I don’t have one of those fancy tooth implants. Is Terri talking to you yet? Or Joshua?”

 

“Terri’s come on a couple of times. No information though, just telling me to remain calm and to keep an eye on you.”

 

Lex didn’t even have the energy to be put out by that. “‘Kay. Okay. Stiles, man, I need _something_. What do they want? I’m still lost.” 

 

“They want the code and the information used to decipher the Iranian correspondence.” Stiles kept his voice low and steady. “They think we have it.”

 

Lex _did_ have it. “Stiles—”

 

“I know. Lex—”

 

“Yeah. I know.”

 

 

 

**_CIA Headquarters, Langly, Virginia 2004_ **

 

Lex hated being summoned by the director. It made him feel like a problem student being called to the teacher’s office. 

 

He knocked twice on the door before letting himself in. He raised an eyebrow at the sight of Stiles already sitting in front of Gage’s desk. Stiles gave him a two-fingered salute.

 

Gage smiled thinly at Lex’s entrance. 

 

“Lex, have a seat.”

 

He did. “I feel like I’m showing up late to the party.”

 

“As usual,” Stiles quipped. 

 

“Ha ha.”

 

Gage cut them off. “Gentlemen, I have a job for you. I think it goes without saying that it requires haste, discretion, and a bit of field work.” Both Lex and Stiles nodded for him to continue. “There has been talk of an up-and coming terrorist organization in Saudi Arabia. Likely connection to Al-Qaeda, but focused on the presence of the United States Military based in Saudi Arabia. The messages have been intercepted, and what they have is stored on a thumb drive. Lex, that’s where you come in.”

 

“Sure thing,” Lex said, carefully. He handled and decoded messages all the time, it was his job. It was certainly no reason to be called into conference with the Director. 

 

“The information is highly sensitive, and CID have requested that it be kept stationary. Both of you will be on a plane in two days.”

 

“To Saudi Arabia.”

 

“Yes, Lex. The boys they have at the base can’t crack it.”

 

Stiles leaned forward in his chair. “Forgive me sir, I understand sending Lex but what is my mission here?” 

 

Gage leveled him with a look that set Lex on edge. He wasn’t sure why, his face hadn’t seemed to change at all. “I believe in teamwork, Mr. Stiles.”

 

Stiles must have heard what he meant, because after a moment his brow relaxed and he gave a nod of understanding. 

 

They were interrupted by another knock at the door. Reese entered and greeted them. Then, to the Director, he said, “When you’re ready.”

 

Gage rose from his chair. Lex and Stiles followed suit. “We’re just finishing up here,” he said. He picked up the file on his desk and handed it to Stiles as the group moved out into the corridor.

 

“Read up. You’ll do good work.” And then Stiles and Lex were left in the hallway. 

 

Lex raised an eyebrow. “Alrighty then. Now what?”

 

Stile’s shrugged. “Now we get to work.”

 

“I can’t work until we get off the plane. Apparently.”

 

Stiles waved the file in front of Lex’s face. “You can read, can’t you? It’s not too much for your robot brain?”

 

Lex swatted at the file as Stiles brought it closer to his nose. “My robot brain can do anything, and you’d do well to remember that.”

 

Stiles smirked. “Come on. I think we’re gonna need coffee. Or _tea_ , your Highness.”

 

 

 

**_Rifle, Colorado 1985_ **

 

Alex tried his very best to ignore his father, but when Isaac Hemsley wanted to be heard, he was damn well heard. He barged into Alex’s room without bothering to announce his entrance. Alex, who had been playing on his Atari and internally cursing his C64, squinted his eyes shut against his dad’s booming voice. “Alex, your—Jesus, kid,” he flipped on all the lights and threw open the blinds, and Alex was squinting for another reason. “Your mother wants you downstairs.” 

 

The thirteen year old groaned. “Right now?”

 

Isaac raised an unimpressed eyebrow, though his son didn’t turn to see it. He leaned over the teen’s shoulder and turned off the monitor. Alex whipped around. “Dad! You can’t just—”

 

“Go to your mother.” And he left the room. 

 

Alex sighed and pulled himself up from the chair. He took a moment to disconnect the Atari from the monitor, and tucked his chair in close to the desk. He zipped up his sweatshirt and dug his hands deep into the pockets. Trudging down the stairs, he could hear the cluttering sounds from the kitchen as his mother made dinner, pots and cutlery banging together and her humming lightly to yet another Neil Diamond record. Peaking into the room, he saw that his father had already settled back into his armchair, and guessed that he’d only moved because Mary Anne Hemsley had asked him to. 

 

Alex slunk into the kitchen, and his mom smiled at him as she noticed him in that over-attentive way that she did whenever she was worrying about him. She did that a lot. Worry about her weirdo son. Alex didn’t like that smile. 

 

“Alex, hon, come help me with dinner.”

 

Alex, knowing the futility of arguing, rolled up his sleeves and washed his hands. “Dad said you wanted to talk to me?”

 

“Oh, I just haven’t seen you all day! I wanted to spend some time with you, is that so bad?” 

 

Alex shook his head. “He just made it sound like something important.”

 

Mary Anne pursed her lips, telling him that he’d been disappointing again. “Now, don’t give me that. You’ve been upstairs all day. Aren’t boys your age supposed to play outside in the summer time?” She chopped vegetables like they’d been the ones to offend her. 

 

Alex stood, awaiting instruction but not wanting to be the one to bring it up. “I was reading.”

 

“Reading what?”

 

“Manuels.” When all he got was a sidelong glance, he kept on talking; this was, after all, one of the only things he liked to talk about at all. “I was thinking about updating my graphics processor. Also, I sort of want to be able to hook up ht Sega console without worrying about anything melting. It’s actually pretty simple, I—” 

 

“Are you talking about you computer again?” His mother asked, finally catching on. She _tssked_ and shook her head, her hairspray-stiff curls bouncing just a little. “I don’t see anything wrong with the one you have, and you should be grateful.” She punctuated her statement with a wave of her wooden spoon.

 

“I am grateful,” Alex said. “I don’t need a whole new computer, but they keep getting better, and there are ways that I think I can just make they one I have better.”

 

Mary Anne handed him a potato peeler and steered him to the far counter, where there sat a pile of spuds. “Sweetie, I know you’re smart, but but I don’t know if you’d be able to make a better computer than the professionals.” 

 

Alex had to physically stop himself from rolling his eyes. Fishing for something else to talk about, he said, “Mr. Piccard is starting a robotics club this year.” His parents had been pushing him to join a club, after all. 

 

Isaac, walking through the kitchen at that moment, said, “Mr. Piccard? Isn’t he, ah…he coaches the track team, doesn’t he?”

 

Mary Anne brightened. “Oh, that’s right! Alex, you should try that!”

 

“Yeah,” his dad said, slightly brighter than he’d been before, “spry kid like you, you could make the team.”

 

Alex said nothing, and peeled the potatoes with renewed intent. 

 

Isaac passed through the kitchen and went out the front door, leaving it open. Alex heard him call out for Jay. They both reentered the house, and Alex saw that his brother was panting heavily and smiling wide, a pair of roller skates slung over his shoulder and his walkman at his hip.

 

“Oh, he’s out,” Jay said, passing Alex. He nudged him as he walked by, and though Alex could see the easy grin on his face, he couldn’t help but feel annoyed. 

 

“Go wash up, dear, and then help me with the zucchini,” their mother said, and Jay jogged up the stairs two at at time.

 

After a long moment of silence, Alex asked, “Mom, can I have a walkman?”

 

Mary Anne answered without looking put from the chicken in her hands. “Jay wants a new one for his birthday sweetheart, and then you can have his.”

 

“Or you could just make your own,” Isaac said, chuckling to himself. “Shouldn’t be too hard for you, right?”

 

Alex was quiet again.

 

 

 

**_Saudi Arabia 2004_ **

 

It was an indistinguishable amount of time before the door creaked open again. The Boss, and a few of his heavily armed cronies, filled the room. Lex could see him clearly now; he was not an old man, perhaps a few years older than Lex. He was an odd mix of well-tailored and fraying at the seams, with his beard trimmed, but dirty—his clothing nice, but in the company he kept, his apparent taste for quality looked vulgar. 

 

In the same measured tone he’d used earlier, he spoke. “Have we come to a decision, my friends?” He looked between them. Neither Lex nor Stiles made one sound, one move. Lex was keeping his eyes trained on his knee and reciting the Fibonacci sequence in his head. 

 

Their captor walked around them in a slow circle. With undue pleasantness, he said, “I hate Americans. But I can appreciate the loyalty you all seem to carry with you. Misguided though it may be.”

 

Lex wasn’t sure what happened, or what triggered it, but suddenly the chair to which he was bound was being half carried, half dragged out of the room, and he couldn’t see Stiles at all anymore. 

 

They didn’t move him far. Down and across the hall a bit into another box of a room. They threw his chair down and it was only luck that kept him from falling completely backward. 

 

A rough hand grabbed his chin painfully, and Lex didn’t manage to keep himself from looking at the face of the man in front of him. It was someone new; the Boss seemed to have stayed back with Stiles. This new guy didn’t try nearly as hard with the niceties. 

 

“Let me tell you what will happen. I will ask you for the information I know you have. Every time you do not answer, I will make you scream instead, yes?”

 

“I don’t know anything.”

 

The man shook Lex’s face. Hard. Lex could taste blood from biting his cheek.

 

“You are not a soldier,” the man said. “You are small, and weak, and ill prepared. You would not have been sent here unless you’re here for the information.”

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 

Lex was given a long, searching glare, and then his interrogator let go of his face and turned away from him. He went to a small table at the edge of the room. Lex stared straight ahead, but the clang or metal sounded clearly from the man and his tools. He turned back around.

 

The guy gestured for someone behind Lex, someone he hadn’t even realized was there, and handed him what looked, at a quick glance, like a small canister and a random assortment of crude tools. Moments after they disappeared from Lex’s sight, he heard the slight, but unmistakable sound of a blow torch. A compact, controlled flame. He could feel the heat on his nape from here. 

 

The man in front of him leaned into his space. He smelled like iron and rot. 

 

“Let me tell you something,” he said. “I do not like you. I do not like this part of the plan. I have my orders, but I cannot always prepare for how people handle these things.” He roughly grabbed Lex’s undershirt shirt collar—button-down long gone—and ripped the fabric from his collar bone almost to his navel. Lex jumped, and the man smirked. “Sometimes my charges tend to die from shock. I will not stop this from happening. In my eyes, you are a hinderance.”

 

Lex spoke, hating the way his voice wavered. “I’m not the biggest fan of this either, I’ll be honest. Why don’t we both just let this go, call it a day?”

 

Whatever signs of twisted mirth were on the man’s face turned to cold, barely restrained fury. He held out a hand was given a red-hot _thing_ that looked sort of like a chisel but had serrated edges, like a saw. Lex zeroed in on it, the edges of his vision blurring as he tried to force himself into calmness.

 

“I believe you to be useless, not innocent. The sooner you give up the information others want, the sooner I can kill you. And we may both be done with this.”

 

“Gotta say I’m not exactly taken by that sales pitch.”

 

“So be it.”

 

Lex had been trying not to think about it, but he found that what happened next wasn’t what he’d expected. He should’ve; he knew the basics of thermodynamics, after all. But as the handsaw was brought closer to his exposed clavicle he was waiting for the pain of a red-hot blade cutting his skin. He was unprepared for his skin to simply start boiling from the radiating heat. 

 

Lex screamed as the blade was held inches from his searing flesh, gagging on the scent and his rude to heave from pain. Infinite minutes passed before it was taken away. His torturer regarded him. “You are weak,” he repeated. “You are unbroken and yet you cry out. I will ruin you. Tell me what you know.”

 

Lex set his jaw and shut his eyes. the fire was brought back, and he screamed again. This was not his job; he was supposed to be behind a computer screen. He hadn’t been prepared for torture. It was only beginning.

 

 

 

**_US Military Base, Saudi Arabia 2004_ **

 

Lex rolled up his sleeves as he stepped out of the LTV wincing at the way he could already feel the heat seeping into his skin. He slung his backpack over his shoulder and fell into step with Stiles as they followed their escorts toward one of the few peripheral buildings of the base that wasn’t a tent. He brushed his fringe back from his forehead, distantly registering that it was already getting damp with sweat. “Damn, I was not made for field work.”

 

Stiles glanced his way. “Why, too much dirt?” 

 

“Not enough AC.”

 

“I thought you paid attention at the briefing.”

 

“I was focusing more on the computer parts.”

 

Stiles shook his head and huffed a laugh. “You know, I think this will be good for you. You need to get out more.”

 

“I get out plenty. I’ve gone on missions before. You were there for most of them, I’m sure you remember. And hey, I’d love to travel more,” Lex said with a shrug. “But I’m more of a, you know…London guy. Or maybe Hong Kong.” He thought for a few seconds. “Or Seattle. I think I’d like Seattle.”

 

“Yeah, I bet you would.”

 

A door was held open for them, and Lex ducked in out of the hot sun and into a room empty of everything but heavily armed people and a large computer. Dusty computer.

 

“Agents,” they turned to the voice to their left. The man approaching them reminded Lex immediately of Director Gage, if a little rougher around the edges. He held out a hand. “Colonel Hendricks.”

 

Stiles shook the offered hand. “Agent Stiles, Sir. This is Lex.” He gestured behind him. 

 

Lex stepped up to shake the man’s hand in turn, and Hendricks nodded. “You’re our man, then.”

 

“That I am, Sir.”

 

Hendricks steered them toward the computer. “I assume you’ve been brought up to speed, but I thought I’d come down anyway. Our tech team is small, and they’ve managed to intercept the messages and pin a general area of origin, but not much else.”

 

“How’d they find an origin point?”

 

Hendricks waved over someone off to the side. “There are multiple codes, some on online forums that the FBI took notice of,” An Officer approached and handed him a fabled bag, which he held up for Lex to see. “And then our guys got this off a group of hostiles about a week ago. They’re still being held; other than the fact that that was in one of their pockets, it’s not been determined how they’re connected.”

 

“The ones our office is running?” Stiles asked. 

 

“Indeed.” Hendricks looked at Lex again, and this time there was open appraisal there. Not unkindly, but not really believing, he continued. “I asked for their best team and they send me one hacker. I hope you’re as good as your Director thinks you are.” 

 

Lex took the thumb drive without breaking eye contact or wavering in his expression. “With all due respect to my Director, I’m better.”

 

 

 

**_Rifle, Colorado 1985_ **

 

Alex no longer expected dinner to be calm, catching-up time with the family. Well, that’s how Mary Anne tried to present it, but Alex saw it more as an interrogation. Or like he was being told off for getting a bad grade in “this-is-just-a-filler-elective” art class. 

 

He sat, pushing bits of mushy zucchini around his plate with his fork as his brother went on and on about baseball. It wasn’t that he didn’t like baseball; it was a game of strategy, and Lex could appreciate good strategy when he saw it. What he didn’t much like was the endless talk about what it felt like to exercise, and then get validation. Jay played shortstop, and he _was_ good, Alex knew; he was quick, and good at covering his teammates’ asses. That didn’t mean the conversation didn’t get repetitive. 

 

He didn’t realize how much he’d zoned out until his father was snapping his fingers in front of his face. “Alex, you in there?”

 

Alex, with wide eyes, looked around the table. His mother looked concerned, and his father a bit annoyed. At least Jay looked like he was trying to smother a smile.

 

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m a little tired, I guess.”

 

“Tired?” Mary Anne sounded genuinely confused. “Sweetie, you haven’t done anything all day, why on earth are you tired?”

 

Jay answered, “Not nothing, Mom. He was probably upstairs building an army of robots out of record players.”

 

“Shut up, Jay.”

 

“ _Alex,_ watch your tone!” Of course, his mom had taken more offense to that than Jay did. His brother had simply held up his hands in surrender and backed down, but Mary Anne had pressed a hand to her chest and looked at Alex like he’d just confessed to murder or something.

 

“Son,” his father started, doing his best to sound stern but coming off as more frustrated than anything else. “This…robot computer business has to stop. It’s not good for a boy your age to have so few friends; you need to make the effort.”

 

“I wasn’t _actually_ building a robot army, Dad.”

 

“Track will be good for you. I’ll call tomorrow and see if I can get a schedule or something for tryouts.”

 

Alex was close to losing control over himself. He could feel it. “I’m not joining the track team. I never said anything about the track team.”

 

“Damn it, Al—” Isaac lost his control, too. He slammed a palm onto the table to punctuate his sentence. “What good are your toys, hm? Jay will probably be getting a scholarship from playing baseball.”

 

“To study _what?!”_

 

Isaac’s face turned red, and Alex didn’t look to his brother. He hadn’t meant to imply that he was stupid, because he wasn’t, but it was out there now and he couldn’t deal with an angry dad and brother at the same time. 

 

Isaac sat, stewing in his chair for long, tense moments. At length, he returned his attention to his dinner. “Go outside.” 

 

“What?”

 

Isaac gestured vaguely to Alex’s still pretty full, but mutilated plate of dinner. “You’re obviously finished. Go outside. Breathe some actual fresh air. Find a ball to kick—just pretend for a minute like you’re a normal kid and see if you might actually like it, alright? You’re excused.”

 

Alex felt a sting in his chest and throat, and he stood from the table and all but ran outside.

 

 

 

**_Saudi Arabia 2004_ **

 

The man bent down to look Lex in the eye, holding a small, dirty pair of pliers inches from Lex’s nose. After giving Lex a moment to register what was in front of him, he asked, “The coded messages. What do they say?”

 

Lex said nothing. Silence was heavy and suffocating in the room. Lex shook from intense fear and pain. He couldn’t spare a thought to be ashamed of that; his chest bore the shining blisters of second and third degree burns, and Lex’s head swam with the agonizing mixture of pain and numbness. 

 

The man shrugged. Grabbing Lex’s left wrist, he secured the pliers to the tip of the pinky fingernail and pulled. Slowly. 

 

Lex clamped his jaw shut harshly enough to grind his teeth before crying out. 

 

It seemed like an eternity before there was any kind of relief—the man had stopped pulling, the fingernail gone and Lex’s finger dripping with blood. He faced Lex once again. “How were the messages intercepted?”

 

Lex bit his tongue and said nothing. His wrist was held once again, and the nail of his ring finger was soon being removed just the same. Perhaps even slower. 

 

Another shout ripped itself from his raw throat. It helped. If he tried hard enough, maybe he could pretend that his throat was the only thing that hurt. 

 

 

**_CIA Headquarters, Langly, Virginia 2004_ **

 

Lex felt his shoulders relax on principle as Terri pressed a hot mug of tea into his hand. “You blessed woman.”

 

Terri grinned as she sat next to him. “What are you up to?”

 

Lex cradled the mug in both hands and settled back into his chair. “Facial recognition. These kids apparently have something to do with that thing _I’m_ doing.” 

 

Terri tilted her head. “What do you mean by ‘something’?” 

 

“Dunno. I don’t know how much Bossman knows, but no one’s told me. I just started running them, so nothing’s pinged yet.”

 

“They’re so young,” Terri said thoughtfully. “What are you running them against?”

 

It was Joshua who answered, coming up behind them with his own mug. “Known terrorist groups and sympathizers, including those in surrounding territories, as well as the usual watch lists and records of allegations. Good morning, Miss Lowell.”

 

“Good morning, Joshua.” 

 

Joshua leaned against the desk. “So, Lex, any new news regarding your upcoming excursion?” 

 

Lex pulled a face. “Nope. There’s a formal briefing in a few hours, but…hm.” 

 

Terri eyed him. “But what?”

 

Lex knew that he’d never be able to brush it off. Not with Terri. “I’m not really sure they know what’s going on. I dunno. I feel like I’m not the only one in the dark.”

 

“Well, I don’t know any more than you do,” Joshua agreed. “Then again, I’m not really involved.”

 

“Thanks for that,” Lex said flatly. “So you’re agreeing that I should know something.” 

 

Terri shot a look to Joshua, one of barely restrained ire, and Lex hunched into himself just a bit. None of them had completely moved on from the clusterfuck of last year, but none held grudges quite like Terri did, civil though she may be. 

 

Like now, she didn’t start anything with Joshua—who had quietly excused himself from the conversation. Terri, instead, leaned in a bit closer to Lex and placed a hand on his back. “Lex, you know that they’ve told you, or will tell you, everything they know before they ship you off. It’ll be fine.”

 

Lex nodded, already distant from the conversation. Mentally shaking himself, Lex pulled up another tab on the monitor. “There’s this, too.” A photo of the handwritten note that was found after the last base bombing. _Ego Immortalis_. 

 

“Latin?”

 

“Yep. ‘I am immortal,’ with ‘I’ being distinctly masculine. And I have very little idea what to make of it. It might have been just a bit of dramatic flair, on their part.”

 

Terri rubbed his shoulder. “You’ll figure it out, Lex. You always do.” And she turned to her own work on her own computer, leaving Lex with his thoughts. 

 

He was still anxious over the briefing later, for no good reason. He rolled his shoulders and let himself try to relax for a minute or two while the computer did its thing. He thought of the song he’d been listening to last: “The Show Must Go On” by Queen. Stiles could say what he liked, that was a great song. 

 

Lex could remember each of the song’s nuances by heart, and even without listening he could replay it in his mind with very little margin of error. He focused on the bass part, letting it calm his nerves and clear his mind, if only a little. 

 

 

 

**_US Army Base, Saudi Arabia 2004_ **

 

Lex, after all this time, never quite lost the little rush he got when he cracked a code. A smirk pulled at his lips when the numbers on the screen stopped twitching and bits and pieces of an image started to appear. “Gotcha.” 

 

Stiles, who had spent the last three and a half hours pacing laps around the small room, snapped his head around to look at him. “Do youhave it?”

 

“I have something,” Lex said, squinting at the image. It was clear enough now to see that it was a photo. Of a door. 

 

Stiles stood, hands on hips, behind Lex’s chair. “What the hell. Is that a place I should know?”

 

“Don’t think so.” It was just a door—straight on, no markings, no address, and surrounded on all sides by remarkable clean and plain walls and walkway. Lex started typing again. “Did you know that people used to get secret messages out by writing Morse code on yarn and knitting it into a piece of clothing?”

 

“No, I did not,” Stiles said mildly. Lex appreciated that he didn’t question him. “The pre-digital world was a scary place, I guess. Espionage, everywhere. Microdots.”

 

“Microdots,” agreed Lex. He hummed in consideration. “I dunno about scarier. You have a cell phone, don’t you?”

 

The image on the screen began to change again, bit by bit as the pixels adjusted. Lex straightened to attention. “A map.” And it was—a topographical map. That was infinitely more worrying than a door. 

 

Stiles brow furrowed. “That’s Fort Bragg,” he said lowly, but urgently. He patted Lex’s shoulder. “I’m going to see if I can find someone.” 

 

Lex nodded and went back to the keyboard. Two hidden images, no reason to assume they’d stopped there. He was dimly aware of Stiles stepping out, probably to find someone who would get the Base Commander. He returned just as the next image was clearing up. 

 

No picture, but just letters on a page. 

 

 

 

M T

 

                         S           M 

 

                                                                              I

 

             R

 

 

 

 A

 

            O I    S

 

 

                                                                          L

 

 

 

“How good are you at Scrabble?” Lex asked.

 

Stiles only pursed his lips.

 

 

 

**_Saudi Arabia 2004_ **

 

Lex grit his teeth and gasped for breath as his eighth fingernail—middle finger, right hand—was pulled free of his flesh. Blood dripped from his hands as sweat dripped down his face, down the back of his neck. The combination of heat and pain made it difficult to think. 

 

His captor was taking pleasure in this. “Who was Iran trying to contact?” He growled. 

 

Lex took a deep, gasping breath and focused on not dry heaving, and on his integers. _0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21…_

 

The agonizing tug at his pointer finger was a point of immense focus, whether he wanted it to be or not. He couldn’t describe the feeling if he tried; that nothing was missing, he still had all of his digits, but everything was somehow very _wrong_. His hands were hot—hot enough that the blood coating them felt cool against his skin.

 

A short eternity passed, and Lex was down to the one nail on his thumb. His captor growled in his face. “What did the messages say?” 

 

_34, 55, 81, 144…_

 

He felt the pliers clamp securely onto the nail, and he didn’t dare breathe. He couldn’t if he’d wanted to. 

 

Before anything could be done, the door opened with a bang. Someone was shouting in a language Lex probably should have known, but everything was so muffled and dizzying, he barely registered it was there, save for the fact that it had stopped his torturer. 

 

The man turned his attention back to Lex. In one swift movement, he ripped the nail from his thumb. Lex, unprepared, let out a broken cry. The man tossed the pliers onto the table by the wall and turned to leave. “When you see me again, I will take your eyes. Consider your options.”

 

He left, and the person who’d come into the room before came to him and cut his bonds. Before Lex could even think of doing something with his newfound mobility, he was grabbed by the hair and filly dragged out of the room. 

 

Lex felt the bones in his neck crack a bit as he was released with a harsh jerk only to land on the hard floor of the room he’d woken up in. As the door behind him slammed shut and was locked, Lex looked up and spotted Stiles slumped against the opposite wall. 

 

“Stiles?” He coughed against the dryness and exertion in his throat. He pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, and for the first time since all this began, looked at his hands. In a detached sort of way, his hands looked kind of funny. Alien. Lex had never realized just how important _fingernails_ were to his concept of self. The red, rawness of the picture reminded him that it also still hurt like a _sonovabitch_ , and he squeezed his eyes shut to try his best to block it out. Block all of it out. “…Stiles?”

 

He crawled over to the other man, who opened his eyes as Lex approached. “Lex. Hey.”

 

“Don’t _‘hey’_ me right now. You alright?” Dumb question. Stiles had gone through a meat grinder. His left leg had more than one wrong angle in it and his hands looked as though he’d tried to fight the Empire State Building and lost; they rested, still and mostly useless, outstretched from Stiles’s body. Stiles tried to force a grin, which turned into more of a grimace. It drew Lex’s attention to the blood dripping from his mouth.

 

“I’m not dead yet.” Stiles slurred. 

 

Lex shot him a look that made it very clear that that wasn’t appreciated. Stiles sighed and pushed himself to sit more upright with one shaking arm. “…Few broken bones. Teeth. Terri’s not talkin’ to me anymore. You?”

 

Ignoring the sinking feeling that they’d been cut off entirely from the CIA with Stiles’s implant gone, Lex held up one hand in demonstration. “Just…you know. I’m fine.” Looking over him, Lex studied the leg closer. Shit. “Which bones?”

 

“Well, the leg that you’re staring at, for one thing.” And Lex _hated_ him right now for sounding so calm about all this. “A few ribs. Fingers.”

 

“Shit. Why?” Lex was hurt, but he was still functional, what the hell.

 

Stiles seemed to get it. “They think I’ll fight back.”

 

“And I won’t?”

 

“You’re the brains of this outfit, I’m the brawn.” Stiles might have cracked a smile, had he not been so obviously exhausted. “Speaking of that. You say anything?”

 

“Course not.”

 

“What are they asking?”

 

Lex sat himself against the wall next to Stiles, leaning his head back. “One guy. Asking the same three questions: Who, What, How, over and over again.”

 

The silence between them was bleak. Lex had to restrain himself from asking if Stiles thought they’d be rescued. Who even knew they were here? He couldn’t ask; he wasn’t sure how he’d handle it if Stiles told him that they’d be left for dead. 

 

At least, if Terri had been talking, they knew that he and Stiles were missing. That had to be a good sign, right?

 

After long minutes, Stiles spoke up again. “Listen. They put us together again. They’re probably going to torture us together. Or make the other watch.”

 

Lex swallowed. 

 

“You stay silent, all right?” Stiles said urgently. “Same rules apply. Say nothing, no matter who they’re hurting, okay?”

 

When he spoke, Lex’s voice was quiet and rough. “You got it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The Show Must Go On](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbwr0RtA2Z0) by Queen + bass cover by Vyk.
> 
> Bass lines can be hella soothing.


	2. Chapter 2

**__ **

 

 

 

**_CIA Headquarters, Langly, Virginia 2004_ **

 

Lex groaned as his back hit the mat, hard. Stiles stood above him, looking way too smug, and offered a hand up. Stiles, dressed in a wife-beater and basketball shorts, was barely panting. Lex, on the other hand, was about to have a heart attack. He looked at Stiles’s offered hand and waved it away. “I’ve decided I’m comfortable on the floor, thanks. I think I’ll rest.”

 

“Nope.” Stiles reached down and hauled him up anyway. “I’ve thrown you, like, six times now.”

 

“Shaddup, I’m little.”

 

Stiles shook his head. “Lex, it’s not that bad.”

 

“Well it isn’t _fun._ ”

 

“Come on.” Stiles, the ass, squared up again. “Try again. Find your center of gravity.”

 

“ _Stiles_. I’m tired. I sucked at this two hours ago, and I’m not any better now.”

 

“That’s because you’re giving up. Come on, you need to know this.”

 

“I am not a field agent!”

 

“But you’re going into the field, aren’t you?” Lex looked away, hands on his hips. But Stiles was persistent. “You have to be prepared for anything. For peace of mind, at least.”

 

Barely being able to hold back his gripe about having _gone into the field before_ , Lex knew that circumstances were a bit different this time. Though Lex didn’t like to think too much about why he’d need such skills, he knew the statistical risk and knew that Stiles had the right idea. Not that he was keen on telling Stiles that he was right about anything, ever. “We leave in like, a day and a half. You honestly think I’ll be able to pick up any of this by then?”

 

Stiles regarded him for a moment before nodding and turning to retrieve something from Lex’s backpack. 

 

“Hey now, get out of my stuff. Your junk is _that_ way.”

 

“Yeah,” Stiles turned back around. “But you carry a stapler with you like a freakin’ weirdo, and I do not.” He walked back to the training mat and stood facing Lex. “I’ll make you a deal. You don’t have to fight me, or throw me. Disarm me, and I’ll be happy.”

 

“You gonna staple me to death?”

 

“Maybe, you little shit.” Stiles held the stapler out in front of him like it was a gun. “We’ll start with a one handed hold. You know how to get this gun from me?”

 

“Theoretically.”

 

“Time for your practical test.” Very quickly, Stiles aimed the “gun” right at Lex’s chest. Lex went in with his left hand to turn the gun away and his right hand to grab at Stiles’swrist, but Stiles beat him to it; with his free hand, Stiles captured Lex’s right wrist and twisted, forcing Lex’s entire body to turn. In mere seconds, Lex was back to chest in front of Stiles, a stapler pressed to his temple.

 

He sprang away when Stiles released him. Stiles said, “You’ve got the idea, but you’re obvious about it. And slow.” He aimed at Lex again. “Try again. Be quick about it. Also, as you push the gun away, try to move yourself out of the line of fire.”

 

Lex gave a thumbs up and they squared up again.

 

 

 

**_US Army Base Camp, Saudi Arabia, 2004_ **

 

“Immoralist” was the word they were working with. Well, the word that used all the given letters. Lex was also running words with less letters, all variations of “moralist” or “immoral” or something like that. Lex had many thoughts about Vigenère ciphers and true computer codes, but with the stress radiating off of Stiles, he managed to hold back. 

 

“Do you think it’s odd,” he asked, “that they’re using the English alphabet? I mean, international societal commentary isn’t exactly my forte, but that’s weird, right?” 

 

Stiles hummed his assent behind him. Lex didn’t know what he was thinking, but he wasn’t about to ask. “It is weird,” Stiles said. “It’s like they meant for us to get it. To understand.”

 

Lex considered this. “The computer code, too. Kinda.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

Lex made a face. “It’s just…code is _code_ , right? And people have been using codes almost since humans have been using written communication. But computer code is different, and complex and random in a way that humans just can’t be. But—” Lex gestured to the screen in front of him, “these people are using the archaic stuff. Altered, and encrypted but still recognizable and with known patterns.”

 

Stiles rubbed a hand over his face. “Okay. So. They wanted us to find this? Why make it so hard to break?”

 

Lex shrugged, and then froze. “Oh shit.”

 

Stiles squared his shoulders and his hand twitched toward his sidearm. “What? What is it?”

 

“Oh we’re so stupid. Don’t tell Bossman. I’m supposed to be the smart one.” As he spoke, Lex entered another word into the computer. “We are supposed to get into it. They gave us the damn _key_.”

 

' _Immortalis_.

 

Soon after, the image on the monitor changed one more time, this time to a photograph taken of a handwritten note. Practiced, but unruly penmanship greeted them. Lex felt the pit drop out of his stomach, vaguely aware of Stiles harshly grabbing the back of his chair. “Stiles—”

 

“They know we’re here,” Stiles’ tone was grave. He began to cross the room with the intent of alerting one of the soldiers, possibly to ask for someone to alert Hendricks, but there was a whistle in the distance and it was coming closer each moment. For a tense breath, time stood still.

 

Then Stiles was back on him. “Lex, _get down!_ ”

 

Lex made it under the metal desk milliseconds before the world rocked beneath his feet.

 

 

 

**_Saudi Arabia 2004_ **

 

Lex, on wobbly legs, makes his way around the small room. It is completely plain, with no vents or pipes. They are in some kind of basement; the ceiling is low and there are two tiny, dirty windows on the top of one wall, maybe four inches tall, about a foot wide. Standing on his toes, Lex can see that it’s dark out, though there must be a car or a lamp or something out there because there is light. 

 

He circles the room over and over again, not knowing whet else to do. He’s undulating between exhaustion and nervous energy. Right now, though his body is crying desperately for rest, he can’t stop moving. 

 

Stiles isn’t moving at all, though. Lex keeps looking his way to make sure he’s still breathing. His eyes stay open; he will not let himself sleep. 

 

They were left in here hours ago, and frankly, Lex is starting to wonder if this long wait meant something worse than the expected torture. Surely they hadn’t meant to leave the both of them to recover for this long. 

 

A commotion rose outside, and in their little room Lex and Stiles could hear muffled shouting and revving engines. Lex and Stiles looked at each other curiously. 

 

“That sounds slightly worrying.”

 

“A bit.”

 

The door was abruptly open, and Lex’s torturer from earlier burst into the room, gun in hand. He quickly took stock of the room and pointed his gun at Lex, slamming the door behind him. Stiles was obviously no threat collapsed practically in pieces on the floor. Lex raised his hands in surrender. 

 

The pistol was pointed straight at Lex’s face. He listened to the man talk as he stared down the barrel. 

 

“I don’t know who you told,” he bit out harshly, radiating fury, “I don’t know who knew you were here, but you will pay.”

 

Lex’s eyes flickered to Stiles, who was looking right back. _What was this guy talking about?_

 

“We are moving. Now.” The man looked between the two of them. His eyes lingered on Lex. “You know. We will not be needing him.” Lex saw that he was about to change targets, turn the gun on Stiles who could do a _fat lotta nothing_ right now. Damn it. 

 

“I don’t know. I don’t know all the answers.”

 

The guy caught that. “All?” And the gun was back on Lex. Lovely. 

 

“I know some. He—” he pointed to Stiles with one of his raised hands “knows some stuff too. We can work this out.”

 

“Oh, we can? Different song than you were singing earlier.”

 

Lex shrugged. “Your plans changed. So did ours.”

 

The man turned his head to address Stiles. “I do not have time for this. I will not bother with a broken body. Tell me what you know now, or I will kill him where he stands. We will find the information some other—”

 

Lex, faster than he thought himself capable, swung his left hand, palm open, to the barrel of the gun while his right hand landed a solid hit to the guy’s wrist. At the same moment, Lex ducked to his left—good thing too. The sudden movements caused the man to pull the trigger, and a shot rang just shy of his right ear. 

 

Lex quite suddenly found himself holding the gun by the barrel, and without thinking too much on it, cold-cocked the guy with the butt of it. He allowed himself a split second to stare stared wide-eyed at the guy he’d just one-shotted, but he was way too tense to enjoy it. 

 

He slunk up against the door, and tested the handle. It was open. 

 

“Lex,” Stiles whispered across the room, “someone will have heard that.”

 

Alert, Lex pulled the door open just a crack and looked out into the hallway, listening with baited breath. 

 

Luckily—or unluckily, it’s really unclear—he could only hear one set of boots rushing to the room. Hopefully everyone else was outside. 

 

Lex shut the door quickly. “One,” he mouthed to Stiles. Lex stood, checked the gun safety, his grip, and aimed at the door.

 

 

 

**_CIA Headquarters, Langly, Virginia 2004_ **

 

Lex leaned against the divide between range slots, watching as Terri unloaded the entire magazine into the paper target. When she was done, she turned to him and grinned. “Not too shabby, hmm?”

 

Lex looked at her target. There was a pretty decent cluster right near the center of the chest. “Killed him dead. Well done.”

 

Terri gestured vaguely to the station see up next to hers. “Your turn.”

 

“I don’t like guns.”

 

“Sometimes people have to use guns, Lex.”

 

Lex shook his head. “That particular eventuality is not my job.” Even as he said this, he loaded bullets into the magazine. 

 

Terri took up his abandoned post, leaning against the divider and watching him work. “You can never be too careful.”

 

“…You’ve talked to Stiles, haven’t you.”

 

Terri smiled innocently. 

 

Lex rolled his eyes. “He’s treating me like a kid.” 

 

“He’s just a little worried, is all.”

 

“About me? That doesn’t sound less patronizing at all.”

 

“It’s not supposed to be patronizing.” Terri sighed. After a moment of thought, she said, “He told me he had a funny feeling. I don’t know what it means—”

 

“He’s suddenly developed psychic powers. Or he ate the egg salad from the vending machine. It’s up in the air at this point.”

 

Terri rolled her eyes. “Just indulge him. The entire reason he’s going on this mission without complaint is to watch out for you.” 

 

“Well _he_ can hold the gun, then.”

 

When Terri only raised one eyebrow, Lex sighed dramatically and loaded the full magazine into his pistol. He clicked off the safety, checked his grip, and aimed. 

 

 

 

**_Saudi Arabia 2004_ **

 

The second Lex registers the door opening, he pulls the trigger. The first shot catches the person in the clavicle, so Lex shoots again. A violent smattering of red paints the door and the body falls backward with the force of it. 

 

Lex stands, shaking, and still aiming, until Stiles’s voice breaks him out of it. 

 

“Lex! _Lex!_ Get it together, is there anyone else?”

 

Shit. Lex stands at the doorway once again and listens. The sound outside has reached a cacophonous level, but Lex can’t hear anyone moving in the hall. He shakes his head at Stiles. 

 

“Good. There’s a garage—they brought us in through it when we got here. They’ve got an old Jeep. Go.”

 

Lex catches that and meets Stiles’s eyes. “No. No, Stiles, I can’t.”

 

“Sure you can. I know you can hot-wire.”

 

“I can. So can you.”

 

Stiles looks grim and much too resolved for Lex’s taste. “I’ll slow you down, Lex.” 

 

“Not if we get to a car, you won’t.”

 

Stiles is being ridiculous. Lex picks up the dead man’s gun and heads back over to his stupid coworker.

 

“Lex, you’re the one who knows what to do with those messages. You need to go.”

 

“I am going.” Lex crouches, hands one pistol to Stiles, and and slings one of Stiles’s arms over his shoulders. He places one arm around his back and carries the gun in the other, and they stand. Stiles groans in pain, and it’s more than a little awkward, with Lex being smaller than the other man.

 

Panting, Lex steadies them. “Okay,” he says, “point us to the garage.”


	3. Chapter 3

**__ **

 

 

 

**_Saudi Arabia 2004_ **

 

Lex and Stiles limped through the small hallway. Met with a short flight of stairs, Lex was straining under the weight of his partner as well as _more_ arguments of why he should go on alone.

 

_“Listen,_ d-bag,” Lex hissed as they cleared the top step, “no one is asking you to play the martyr. I am not going to drop you on you ass and leave, so tone down the hero complex, Harry Potter.”

 

“Hairy what?”

 

“Which way?”

 

Stiles pointed to their right, around another corner. Moving as quickly as possible, they made it into the poorly lit garage and uncovered the dusty old Jeep. The noise outside was getting louder and angrier, and Lex could guess that it wouldn’t be long until someone noticed they were missing. 

 

He set Stiles and his gun down on a tool bench and found a screwdriver. Facing away from the window, Lex held the tool against the driver’s side window and whacked the end of it with his other hand. The glass shattered, and Lex reached through to unlock the car. 

 

He helped Stiles to the passenger side, handed him both guns, and circled back to the driver’s side. 

 

“Okay…” he said in a shaky whisper. “Let’s get this baby running.” He prayed that it actually would.

 

Lex had one full minute to tinker before both he and Stiles heard a door open from the main house. Risen voices filled the air and Lex fought hard to keep his hands from shaking as he finally managed to get to get the engine running. 

 

_“Thank fuck.”_

 

Lex wasted no time at all getting in the driver’s seat and putting the think into drive. Not a moment too soon—the people in the house had evidently heard the car starting, and rushed to the garage just as Lex was pulling away. One unlucky bastard managed to get himself around the car, and Lex pinned him between the grill and the garage door before he was dragged under the speeding off-roader.

 

The garage door made a hell of a noise; the thing was flimsy enough that it didn’t really slow them down, but it definitely made a sound. As Lex was speeding out of there, Stiles pointed to their right a bit. 

 

“There was a road that way!” Lex could barely hear him even as he shouted. In stark contrast to the crushing quiet of earlier, not the shouting was aimed at them. Other vehicles were revving into action and flashlights and headlights followed them away. 

 

Lex, as he turned unto what he hoped was a road, could see people circling around to the front of the small house—one of about half a dozen, he could see now. Some people were actually in positions to intercept them. Guns raised. 

 

“Stiles!”

 

As Lex ducked as much as he dared behind the wheel, Stiles brought up his pistol and shot through the windshield. Heavy gunfire answered. 

 

Unwilling to slow them down by trying to avoid the people with guns, Lex floored the gas and approached the crowd at full speed. He recognized the leader; the Boss, the one with the flashy clothes that he was sure had broken Stiles’s bones. Seeing him raise his own gun, Lex veered to the side enough to have a straight shot at him. Seeing this, Boss turned tail and started running. He made it about four steps before Lex ran him down. 

 

As they were about to clear the small crowd, Lex became hyperaware of two distinct gunshots above the rest. First, there was the one that shattered the windshield completely. The glass fractured so finely that Lex couldn’t see through it. Stiles leaned forward, grimacing as he did so, and pounded at the glass until it came away in one sheet, picking up wind and sailing over the roof of the car. 

 

The second gunshot was the one that lined up with the sudden, fiery pain in Lex’s side. He accidentally jerked the car to the side as one hand flew to grasp at his side. Lex righted the car quickly and let go of his bleeding flesh; _escape now, pain later. Drive now, deal with possible bleeding out later._

 

Stiles, having noticed Lex’s lapse in control, looked over at him frantically. “Lex!? Hey, what happened?”

 

Lex said nothing, but brought his blood red hand back up to the steering wheel. Stiles went silent at that. 

 

They were on a road. Bless Stiles and his freaky ability to remember where roads are in relation to a kidnapper/terrorist’s house. 

 

They weren’t out of the woods yet. Behind them was another, newer Jeep and an armored truck. They were gaining. 

 

Lex and Stiles had headlights, but they were dim from dirt and generally useless at high speeds. “Any other instructions you want to give me?” Lex shouted. 

 

Stiles said nothing. He tossed one of the pistols into the back seat, leaving Lex to assume that they’d used at least half their scant few bullets. “Hang on.”

 

Stiles twisted himself this way and that in his seat as Lex sped down a bumpy road, looking under seats and in every compartment. Lex didn’t know what he was looking for, but he hoped it was worth it; he could only imagine how much that was hurting. 

 

“Yes,” Stiles said. Lex glanced over at Stiles, who was pale and panting, and holding a radio in his hand. 

 

“Does it work?”

 

Stiles turned it on, compensating for his broken fingers, and scanned a few frequencies. “Ha! Yeah, it works.” 

 

Someone in one of the cars behind them was shooting again. Lex swerved, as a knee-jerk reaction. He asked Stiles, “You know what frequency our guys are on out here?”

 

“Not a clue. I’m going to scan through them.”

 

“All of them?”

 

A shot rang out and took out Lex’s rear-view mirror. 

 

Stiles side-glanced Lex. “The bad guys already know where we are, Lex.”

 

“Right. Got it.”

 

Stiles set to work, activating the built in GPS and scaring through frequencies, sending signals via morse code at each channel: S.O.S.

 

The road suddenly turned from straight and rather wide, to narrow and winding. Lex had no idea where they were, but for some unfathomable reason, he was reminded of driving through the mountains when he was young.

 

Lex jerked the wheel, distantly wary of overcompensating for the traitorous terrain. Wheels skidded, deafening Lex to anything else, and he squinted, trying to keep sight of the dusty road. Distantly he wondered if his vision as getting a little fuzzy with blood loss. 

 

Blessedly, the car stabilized and they were on another short stretch of straight road. Lex gunned it and managed to gain a bit if a lead, but beside him, Stiles spotted something in the rear view mirror and braced. 

 

_“The tires!”_ Stiles shouted. Lex could barely register the words before another barrage of gunfire resulted in the jeep fishtailing once again as the back tires shredded under them. As Lex scrambled for some control one of the tacticals behind them rammed their bumper corner, and there was nothing Lex could do. 

 

They spun out. Lex eyes the fall to their right towards the road’s edge before the world spun in front of him. Their car, with its high center of gravity, kept its momentum going and flipped—Lex didn’t know how long it went on or how many times they went end over end, but but his entire body hurt like a bitch when they stopped moving so he wasn’t dead. The groaning from Stiles told him that they’d both survived. So far. It was a small comfort. In fact, Stiles was far closer than he was supposed to be; neither of them had thought to throw on seatbelts when they’d made their escape, and they had landed on the passenger side of the car. Almost all of Lex’s weight was thrown across him. 

 

Lex hurried out the space for the absent windshield, staying close to the ground and taking advantage of the fact that the front of the car was still facing away from their pursuers. One glance up told him that they’d only stopped short of the drop-off by about twenty feet, though he had no idea what was down there, no idea how far down it was or what waited at the bottom. 

 

He turned back to Stiles and the mass of steel he’d crawled from, incredulous that neither of them had even been thrown. Stiles hadn’t moved. Shouting and door slamming came from behind their feeble cover, and Lex reached an arm out to pull Stiles out of the wreck. 

 

Stiles, of- _fucking_ -course, tried to wave him off. Lex didn’t know if he wanted to laugh, cry, or punch him out of frustration. 

 

“Shut up,” Lex growled. “Shut up and _come on!_ ” He was beyond stressed about how much he was jostling Stiles around right now, having absolutely no idea how hurt he actually was. He pulled as hard as his adrenalin let him, and Stiles was free of the car. Lex scrambled to his feet and was faced with the Bossman who’d held them both. The mild-mannered fuckface with expensive taste. He stood, maybe ten yards away smiling way too smugly and backed up by angry men with guns. 

 

“You are not dead,” he said. “I’m glad.” Then, to his men, he turned and said something that Lex didn’t understand but the gesture in their direction was a tip off. 

 

They were out of time and out of options. With strength Lex knew wasn’t truly his, he pulled Stiles’s arm over his shoulder and held up the taller man’s entire weight, Stiles only able to hop slightly on one foot. Lex was dragging him, no two ways about that, and running. 

 

_I’m sorry_ , he wanted to say but hadn’t the breath to. _God, I’m sorry_.

 

Blessedly or not, the rounds of bullets that followed them the short distance to the edge of the road missed them entirely. With a final cry of exertion, Lex threw the both of them over the edge, trying to push off in case it was more of a steep incline than a sheer drop off. 

 

When they went over, the only thing Lex could hear was his own breathing. It seemed too calm to him, but that was fine, because it gave him a rhythm to focus on. Air rasped in his dry throat, but that was fine, it made it easier to hear it above the rising ringing in his ears. He forgot which integer he’d left off on. This would do. 

 

When they hit water, it felt like stone. The unexpected chill stung his wounds and stole his breath before he was even fully under.

 

 

 

**_Rifle, Colorado 1985_ **

 

Alex hunched his shoulders, burying his hands deep in the pockets of his sweatshirt. He was in the sort of mood that made him hate the weather, and the early fall evening was chillier than he’d like. 

 

He walked well ahead of his brother, not wanting to talk but it was no use. Jay came up behind him, and Alex could hear the rustling of a heavier windbreaker than the thing he was wearing. 

 

“Wait up, Bug!” Jay saddled up to his side in that too-close way he did. “What’s your problem? You’re acting weirder than usual.”

 

“You don’t have to follow me,” Alex said, instead of answering. “I’ll tell Mom that we had a good game.”

 

He could feel the look Jay shot him. “I don’t mind. If you slow down for a second I can go get the soccer ball.”

 

“I don’t want to play.”

 

Jay sighed. “You never want to do anything fun.”

 

“Yes, I do,” Alex was suddenly defensive again, and he turned to glare half-heartedly at his brother. “I do fun stuff all the time.”

 

“Alone in your bedroom?”

 

Alex forcefully bit back a smile. “If you wanna be weird about it, sure.”

 

Jay snorted at that, and slung an arm over Alex. The younger decided to let it slide this time. Their pace had slowed and they walked aimlessly across the field. They had almost reached the river.

 

“Why were Mom and Dad talking about you joining the track team?” Jay asked curiously.

 

“I told them about the robotics club.”

 

“What?” 

 

“Yep.” Alex saw movement from the corner of his eye. He turned, and whatever feelings of contentment he’d been feeling vanished. “Your friends are here.”

 

“What?” Jay asked again before looking passed his brother. “Oh.” 

 

He lifted his arm from his brother as the group of boys approached. They were the rest of the older boys from their stretch of the neighborhood. Alex never got along with Jay’s friends. They were loud and stupid. Well, everyone was loud and stupid, but something about these ones made Alex feel uneasy. 

 

The stockiest one, Corey, went straight up to Jay and clamped a hand on his arm. “Hey, man.”

 

“Hey, guys,” Jay said, looking over all of them.

 

“We’re playing baseball,” Corey said. “Wanna join in? Will’s pitching is embarrassing.” This was met with sniggering from the rest, though Alex thought much of it was forced. 

 

Jay, too, cracked a smile, but he looked back at Alex for a moment and said. “I’m not feeling up to it, guys.”

 

Corey turned his eyes to Alex, and Alex looked away from his face and over his shoulder. “What, are you babysitting?” he asked Jay, but took a step closer to Alex before Jay could answer. Everyone’s eyes were not on Alex, and he had to step back a bit. Before, he could deal with. He was used to being ignored, but this attention was not something he wanted. Corey, though not much taller than he was, bent over and talked like one would to a toddler. “What’s wrong? You need Big Brother to kiss it better?”

 

Alex said nothing. The nasty chuckles and hissed whispers coming from the group rose in volume and echoed in his thoughts. He stood still, looking well past the group. The sun setting over the mountains cast the whole valley in shadow, and the sky was turning a brilliant peach. Alex turned his thoughts to what he’d learned about light refraction and elliptical patterns, but he could not drown out the voices. 

 

“Is he deaf?” 

 

“Dude, he’s not even moving.”

 

“He’s so weird, man…”

 

“Hey!” Corey clapped his hands loudly in front of Alex’s nose, startling him into meeting his eyes. “You stupid, kid?”

 

“Do I look like you?” He spoke before he thought. He hated it when he did that. 

 

Corey’s face scrunched up in an ugly, angry way. Some of the group behind him hooted in laughter while others looked similarly angry. 

 

Jay’s hand came down on Alex’s shoulder as he placed himself between his friends and his brother. “Knock it off, guys, come on.”

 

Corey raised an incredulous eyebrow. “Seriously?”

 

Alex felt more than saw Jay tense. He could imagine the wince of embarrassment on his face; from this angle, he could only really see his jaw tighten, but he knew what he must look like. Jay pursed his lips when he was stressed. And when he was doing something he didn’t want to do. 

 

Alex ducked around his brother and started walking off. He would not stand there while Jay picked. He’d just leave. That made it easier, somehow. He ignored the mean laughter behind him as well as the sound of Jay calling his name. 

 

It was a fruitless effort, running away, and part of him had known that even as he did it. He’d just made it to the river when Jay grabbed his arm and pulled him around. “Hey, let’s just go back. It’s getting cold anyway.” But they were joined by the pack of idiots before Alex could make any kind of response. Alex looked down at the smooth rocks at his feet, thinking about erosion and trying to determine what kind of rock smoothed over the fastest. 

 

Corey stalked right up to him and pushed him hard on the shoulder. “Hey, _look_ at me when I’m messing with you, dweeb.”

 

Jay pulled Corey off him and did his best to toss him away. “Watch it, Corey.” His voice was harder now. Not a plea, but a warning. 

 

Corey righted himself and squared up against Jay. “You gonna fight me instead, Jay? Thought we were friends.” A tense few seconds pulled at Alex’s gut, and then Corey suddenly pulled back and socked Jay hard in the gut.

 

_“Jay!”_ Alex cried, reaching out for his brother. But the punch seemed to be some sort of signal because the rest of the boys defended upon them, too. Alex’s hand had barely brushed Jay’s windbreaker when he was shoved to the ground. 

 

By some odd mercy, Alex was still pretty okay during the fight. Whether it was because he was younger than the rest of them, or just because they were lazy, those surrounding him seemed to have the objective of just keeping him on the ground. His knees and hands were cut and bleeding, but as he listened to the sounds Jay was making, he figured his brother’s treatment was worse. 

 

When he next got to his feet, Alex threw all his weight into shoving one of his attackers, who was knocked back against Corey, who turned around with murder written across his chubby, freckled teenage face. He grunted and came at Alex, but Alex dove down and to the left to avoid a wide punch. In doing so, his upper body met the edge of the ground and Alex was looking down into the angry river a good few feet below him. He hadn’t quite realized how close they were.

 

A cruel laugh behind him brought his attention back to present. “If you wanted to go swimming,” said Corey, with mock understanding, “you could’ve just asked.”

 

After that, things got a bit hazy. Both Alex and Jay were tossed or pushed over the edge and into the water. The fall was not that big—five feet, maybe. But this part of the river was deep, and that meant that it was deceptively calm. Currents ran deep, and as the boys were submerged, they were swept away quickly, tumbling through the dark, frigid water, finding the surface for a moment only to lose it again and again. 

 

For a short time, Alex was able to keep an eye on Jay. After long and terrifying moments, Alex managed to grab hold of his brother’s arm and felt Jay grab him back, though he could barely see in the chaos. 

 

The water was getting quicker though, and more volatile. Alex was an aching sort of numb from the temperature and from the effort of his swim, but he clearly felt the jarring sensation of suddenly hitting a rock. Jay had hit it first, and Alex had subsequently rammed into him. Alex felt cold panic flood him as Jay’s grip on his hand slackened, and then went limp completely. 

 

The brief rapids were torturous. As the river deepened once again, the boys were dragged back into the water, swallowed up by the murky blackness. Jay, who was no longer struggling to stay afloat like Alex was, served as an anchor and pulled Alex down with him. Alex fought, begged, even prayed for anything that would prevent what he knew in his heart was about to happen. 

 

Alex could only hold on with one hand, the other being preoccupied trying to swim. It wasn’t nearly enough. Jay’s hand slipped through Alex’s fingers, and though Alex had been looking straight at the hand in his own, it was only a second or two until he lost sight of his brother completely.

 

 

 

 

**_Saudi Arabia 2004_ **

 

The water took his body and twisted it around, tossed him end over end, and Lex couldn’t tell which way was up. He’d lost his grip on Stiles. 

 

The pitch black of the water only served to further his confusion. He threw his hands out around him, hoping that his fingers would brush against his friend, but no such luck. Low lights from the stars above and the lights being shone into the water gave him a sense of direction, but to go up would mean leaving Stiles, and he couldn’t do that. Wouldn’t.

 

He needed air though. The burning inside his chest was beginning to match that of the skin, and he _needed_ air. Manically, he swam the few yards up to the surface, letting his air escape him before breaching and gulping down quick, frantic lungfuls before plunging back under. Directionless, he was startled when a much stronger light penetrated the water. Lex still couldn’t see very well, but he could make out the rocks that carried up to the cliff face above the water. And, maybe fifteen feet below him, the pale skin and white shirt of Stiles. And he wasn’t moving. 

 

Lex swam down farther. He knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, that they’d probably only end up back in their enemy’s hands once they made it to the surface. He knew that, physically, he probably wouldn’t be able to swim Stiles upward. Stiles had a good amount of weight on him. 

 

_Don’t think about it,_ Lex’s mind supplied. _If he dies today, it will not be because of you. Don’t let it be you._

 

By some miracle, Lex made it down deep enough. He needed air again, and his already strained muscles protested against the added weight. The pain of the gunshot wound in his side tore through him again.

 

Lex thought he’d die like this. He thought he’d die many times today, but this one stood out, perhaps simply because he was fighting against this one. Fighting against something that could not be conquered. He wasn’t sure if the silence of drowning was calming or horrifying. When he spared the smallest moment to let himself imagine just…stopping, stop swimming and let them both go—his chest tightened in acute panic, and he decided he didn’t care. He was going to opt out of drowning. He closed his eyes and concentrated on kicking, and keeping his grip firm.

 

Lex broke through the surface hacking up swallowed water. He tried to open his eyes, but the light shining down on him was harsh and he instinctively turned himself away from it. The water covered his head again, and in a panic he swam even harder. 

 

Slowly, he became aware of the cacophonous sounds around them. A helicopter, for one thing, and lots of shouting. But that one wasn’t really much of a surprise. People had been shouting at him all day. 

 

Lex squinted his eyes open to try to find something that resembled land. Not far off, a little way from the sheer face they’d jumped from, was an incline. It didn’t provide a _beach_ so much as a rock pile to lean against, but to Lex at that moment, it was as good as. He angled himself and tried with all his strength to get them there, but his adrenalin was finally failing him, and so was his body. He was having enough trouble trying to keep them floating. 

 

Something splashed down in front of him, and his hazy brain recognized the bottom of a rope ladder in a daze. A figure descended from it, a man, who stopped near the bottom and lowered his lower half into the water. 

 

He was wearing a US Army uniform. 

 

Lex didn’t know what he was shouting, but he recognized the outstretched arm easily enough and desperately reached out. The soldier caught him and pulled him closer to the ladder, letting Lex secure his grip on the ladder and then reaching to hold onto Stiles. They were not climbing; the helicopter moved carefully, dragging them to the very rock face Lex had just been set on. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw the team of medics making their way down the difficult ridge on the far side. 

 

They made it to the shore, and the soldier dragged both of them until they rested mostly out of the water. Lex collapsed, and although he knew someone was talking to him, he couldn’t understand what they were saying. All of his feeble remaining energy went into keeping himself from passing out, and keeping a firm hold on Stiles’s forearm. 

 

Lex turned his head enough to watch the medics tend to Stiles. He wasn’t breathing. He wasn’t breathing and somehow Lex already knew that but had refused its truth. They laid him as flat as they could, flat enough for CPR, but to Lex’s overwhelming relief it only took a couple of chest compressions to get him hacking up swallowed water, tinged with blood. 

 

Lex went limp with relief, and as soon as Stiles stopped his horrible coughing and retching and was able to draw a haggard breath, Lex fell into unconsciousness. 

 

 

 

**_After_ **

 

Lex was pretty out of it for the whole of the next day, due to both the pain medication being pumped through his system and by personal choice. Now, not even twenty four hours after the whole shitshow had ended, they were on a cargo plane to Europe. It was dark, the equipment and body of the plane around them rattled in turbulence, but it was getting them out of there. 

 

Stiles had been out of it too, but where Lex had woken up and gone on to do his best to ignore his reality, Stiles was actually out cold for most of it. As much as Lex hated to admit it, he was tired, but for the life of him he could not fall asleep after that first bout of exhausted unconsciousness; some part of him was envious of his partner. Lying there on his uncomfortable metal “bed,” secured to the side of the plane across from Lex, passed out and in immense pain. The bastard. 

 

Lex knew the injuries by heart, now. Four broken ribs, all on his right side. Broken tibia and fibula in his right leg, fractured femur in the other. Grade three concussion. Five fingers broken, spread out between both hands and some in multiple places. His jaw was swollen, having had four teeth wrenched out of his skull. They’d had to perform mouth-to-mouth on site, right on the rocks, because Stiles had been practically drowned and they’d needed to get the water out of his lungs. 

 

Other than that, general bumps and bruises, Lex supposed. He clenched his jaw and stared absently at a bolt on the metal wall in front of him. Here he was, whole, still having trouble looking at his own hands because _fingernails_. 

 

He was at least glad that the soldiers and medical personnel accompanying them hadn’t tried to talk to him. Maybe someone had picked up on his complete disinterest and spread the word. He was grateful to them, but small talk with strangers was just too much effort right now. 

 

He closed his eyes and did his best to doze off, leaning his head back and trying to relax his aching muscles. He wasn’t sure how long he went before one of the really nice nurses decided to tick him off and shake his shoulder. “Sir?”

 

Lex sucked in a breath and sat bolt upright, and probably would have shot the woman a nasty glare had a grunt not distracted him completely. 

 

“L’x?”

 

Lex stared, wide-eyed, at Stiles. The man was a sight to behold, a far cry from the capable agent he was so used to. Stiles squinted in the low light angling his head in Lex’s direction slightly. 

 

Lex’s voice was rough when he responded. “Stiles,” he said, and then he stopped, because what the hell was he supposed to say?

 

Long moments stretched between the two, wherein they both took stock of the other. Lex was completely gobsmacked when Stiles smiled—a little wane, but genuine—and honest to God _giggled_. “Y’ look like shit.”

 

Lex shook his head, completely incredulous. “And _you_ are super high.” 

 

“Oh,” Stiles said, with an annoying degree of disinterest. “You okay?” 

 

“Stiles, _forfuckssake_ —” Lex ran an unsteady hand through his hair and winced as the naked sting from that action reminded him of his own, mediocre injuries. His hand dropped back to his lap and he trained his eyes on the breathing tube on Stiles’ face. 

 

To his credit, Stiles seemed to be sobering up pretty quickly. With great effort, he looked himself over, tested the movement of his hands and wincing as he laid back down all the way. “‘M _I_ okay?”

 

“Yep. You will be.” When Stiles raise an eyebrow only slightly, Lex heaved a deep breath and repeated to him the list of injuries that he’d been repeating to himself for the last several hours. “You’re in the clear. No brain damage. You’ll have to have physical therapy for the next hundred years, and there’s a slight possibility for loss of complete motor control in your hands, but nothing that would inhibit you in your duties. They said…they said you should make a full recovery.”

 

Stiles took this in with a reflective hum, and they lapsed back into silence. The medical team had retreated some ways to start up a low conversation with the soldiers. Stiles broke it. 

 

“Where are we?”

 

“On a plane.” 

 

“I guessed…that much, Lex.”

 

“We’re on a plane to West Sussex, and then we’ll be on a chopper to the USS Abraham Lincoln.”

 

“Oh. Cool.”

 

Another long, _long_ silence. 

 

“H’ve you talked to people?” Stiles asked. 

 

“By that, I assume you mean _our_ people?” Lex asked rhetorically. “Yeah. Haisley gave me a quick rundown. Terri was only on the line for a second. She told me to relax. And to warn you that you’re gonna get smacked when we touch down in the States.”

 

Stiles said, indignant, “What’d I do?”

 

“I’m sure she can come up with something.” And then they’d spend time staring into each other’s eyes at an uncomfortably close distance, pretending like neither one of them wanted to make out. Honestly, they were disgusting.

 

Stiles scoffed. Lex didn’t tell him that he could hear her crying over the phone; the tears in her voice were unmistakable, and although she hadn’t mentioned anything and she’d tried to keep things light during their short conversation, he’d been shocked to his very core. He hadn’t said anything, doubted he ever would, though he did wonder it all this made her remember only a short while back, when _she’d_ been the one the one stuck between a rock and a hard place and had come back more than a little bit bruised and broken. He hadn’t thought about that at all in the past few days, but the realization had his him like a brick wall. 

 

Terri had only been back at work for a few months, and was still on desk-duty. Lex took another once-over of Stiles and winced, wondering how long it’d be until he could get back to work. Stiles hated desk work. Lex was going to have such a headache. 

 

Stiles must have noticed the wince because he asked, again, “Lex, really, you okay?”

 

Lex went to give him an overenthusiastic thumbs up, aborting that mission when he stole a glance at his fingers again. “I’m good.”

 

Stiles didn’t roll his eyes—Lex suspected he had a headache of his own—but he may as well have. “C’mon. I can never get you to shut up. You goin’ quiet on me now?”

 

“Guess so.”

 

“Lex,” Stiles sounded pained. All the talking was starting to take its toll, but when one of the medics went to get him a water bottle, he waved them away. “I remember…you were shot.”

 

Blank-faced, Lex said, “Yep.”

 

“That shit hurts, man.”

 

Something in Lex snapped. When he spoke he was practically growling with frustration. “Yeah. Okay, yeah, you know what? I hurt like hell. I hate being shot, turns out. I’ve got stitches in the front and back of me that pull whenever I move _at all_. My shoulders are so sore that I want to puke. I’ve got third degree burns and they itch so _fucking_ much. And the icing on the cake? They took my fingernails. Took my fucking fingernails and now I have E.T. fingers.” He waved his aforementioned fingers in front of him, though Stiles only gave them a cursory glance. He went on. “You were out there, taking a hell of a hit and then _running away_ with two broken legs and a broken everything else, and I’m freaking out over my own perfectly functional fingers." 

 

Stiles seemed to study him before saying decisively, “That’s not why you’re freaking out.”

 

Lex scoffed and slumped back into his seat, ending the conversation for a while. He thought Stile’s had drifted off again when the man asked what had happened with the encrypted messages. “The drive burned up, but they think they’ll be able to salvage at least some of the information. They’re taking me off of it. Least for now.”

 

“You can save information from that?”

 

“Well, I can’t. Forensic people do that.”

 

“Never thought I’d see the day you admitted you can’t do something.”

 

_You almost didn’t_ , Lex thought. He huffed a small, humorless laugh. “Oh, I could if I really wanted to. But under current circumstances, it was decided that someone else could do it better.” And he was somewhere between feeling relieved and utterly offended. 

 

“Ah,” Stiles nodded. “My mistake. I forgot you’re a machine. Can do anything.” He said it in the kind of good-natured teasing way he usually did, and the normality of it rocked Lex. In fact, he’d hold his surprise as an excuse for what he said next. 

 

“Lots of things I can’t do.” He regretted it as soon as he said it. Vague as it was, it would be just his luck for Stiles to read into it. 

 

He did. Stiles sighed heavily. “Right. You’re right. I must have hallucinated you shooting the bad guys and hot-wiring a car and saving my ass. Think someone told me you saved me from drowning, too?”

 

Lex shook his head. “Stiles, I—” 

 

“Lex.” Lex quieted. He didn’t meet his eye, but he kept a steady gaze on the rise and fall of Stiles’ chest as the man spoke. He took a long moment before doing so to gather himself, though whether it was because he was tired or because he wasn’t sure what to say was unclear to Lex. “You’re not a computer, Lex.”

 

Lex tried for a solid ten seconds to figure out how that statement made any sense with their conversation. And he failed. “Come again?”

 

“I know I tease you for it. We all do, even the other computer people. But you’re not a computer. People feel things.” Lex could tell he was dropping off into another bout of deep sleep, but Stiles was fighting to stay awake. Stiles continued, “I had the easy job, y’know? S’not hard to get beat up. Hard to watch, though.”

 

Lex shut his eyes against the reminder. Damn Stiles. Making him feel better about things that he was completely resigned to feeling guilty over forever. 

 

“Kept your cool.” Stiles was still talking, and he was slurring more by the second. “Got us out. Didn’t give ‘em shit.” He stopped, and his brow wrinkled comically as he thought. “Wait, no. You did give ‘em shit, just not the shit they wanted. The sassy kind o’ shit you give Joshua sometimes.”

 

Lex couldn’t help but break into slightly manic, more than a little bit broken laughter. “Dude, I wish I had a video camera. You’re _so high_ right now.”

 

“I’m being serious.”

 

“Yeah I know, that makes it funnier.”

 

When he laughed again, he was joined by Stiles. His laugh was maybe a bit quieter and lazier than it should have been, but this was good. This was fine. 

 

Stiles dropped into dreamland soon after, just as he was coming down from is amusement. Lex spent a few long minutes listening to the sound of his slight snoring; constant, continual evidence that Stiles wasn’t dead. Glancing over at the other people on the plane, he was glad to see that they genuinely didn’t look like they were eavesdropping. He doubted that he and Stiles were the only people to have an emotional moment following a traumatic experience, and he was glad for the pseudo privacy. 

 

He subtly brought a hand up to wipe away an escaped tear and then closed his eyes. They’d land soon, he knew, but a few minutes was better than nothing. Leaning his head back, he searched his mind for something to focus on. No integers. He’d had enough integers for a while. 

 

Almost unbidden, he started thinking of a song, and rolled with it. "Rooster" by Alice in Chains began in his mind almost as clearly as if he were listening to a CD. Lex focused on the bass line, appreciating the slow rhythm. For the first time in days, his shoulders relaxed and a deep breath really did make him feel better. He was okay. 

 

The next logical step was forward.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Rooster](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4E2GSf1AKA) by Alice in Chains + bass cover by acidcane.


End file.
